Ohio is an Iroquois tribe word–it means “Big River.” It’s actually bounded by many rivers and a century ago was a major port in the trades and commerce that traveled by water. It was also a favorite waterway for bootleggers delivering whiskey via the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Back then, Ohio had a piece of everything. The dark machines of Ohio propelled themselves ever-forward, devouring towers of steel, of glass, of paper, of rubber, and of flesh.
She was Ohio, and she stood up on her sticky black-iron legs under a bolt of the oldest lightning of a century, wet from being born every day, only to die at five o’clock, watching the fences swing open.